


I Picture the Future and I See You There

by BeckyBubbles



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gilbert Blythe in Love, Gilbert Blythe is Confused, Gilbert visits the fortune teller, This is a scene I headcanoned once, add-in scene, county fair, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeckyBubbles/pseuds/BeckyBubbles
Summary: Gilbert Blythe pays a visit to Madam Lyudmila with questions about his future and his relationship with Anne.*** or ***A scene I once made a head canon of in which Gilbert also pays a visit to Madam Lyudmila during the county fair.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 36
Kudos: 113





	I Picture the Future and I See You There

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there!
> 
> Here is a wee insert scene of a head canon I once had after a conversation with @justagalintx and @dashingwhitesgt on twitter. It's a super random scene where Gilbert also visits Madam Lyudmila at the county fair, just after Anne runs away from him after The Great Liniment Cake Incident.
> 
> It's just a little drabble I wrote in a few hours because procrastination, but I hope you like it anyway! x

Gilbert had said something wrong. He could see it in the way Anne’s face was changing. How her eyes, that were wide and expectant just moments before as she looked at him, dulled and became guarded. He could see it in how her shoulders slackened and he could hear it in how her voice quietened, a note of resignation weaving with her words as she mumbled, “Right.”

He swallowed, questioning why he had followed her at all. He had come here with Winnie, who was beautiful and funny and easy to be with and, by some marvel, had decided to step out with _him,_ despite his having nothing to offer as a suitor. He should consider himself lucky. Gilbert would have been a fool to have not noticed the envious looks he was receiving from young men in the crowd, ruddy faces eyeing Winnie appreciatively as the couple passed. It wasn’t too often such a fine lady attended the fair, especially not on the arm of a farm boy. But none of that seemed to matter the moment he had laid eyes on Anne.

She had arrived before him like she had been carried in with the wind, her cheeks flushed and her hair spilling around her shoulders, long and loose and tempting like a painting of Venus he had once seen in a book, and he had been reminded of how she seemed to make his soul sing her name. How she was capable of stealing the very air within his lungs from just one glance. And so, when she had fled from beneath the red and white canopy they gathered under, Gilbert hadn’t been able to stop himself from slipping Winnie’s hand from the crook of his elbow. He hadn’t hesitated in following Anne, finding himself drawn to her like he always was, something unseen tethering them together. There were times he felt he would follow her anywhere, as long as he knew that when she stopped, he would be allowed to stand by her side.

But now, as she faced him, flame red tendrils dancing in the breeze that swirled around them, Gilbert’s fist clenching at the side to stop himself from reaching out and twisting her hair in his hand, he knew he had said the wrong thing. He always managed to put his foot in it with Anne.

“Thanks,” she cried, turning abruptly from him and fleeing once more. He stared after her, feeling his heart sink to the toes of his boots as she disappeared into the crowd in a flash of red and blue. He should return to Winnie. But he was still filled with Anne.

She frustrated him and confused him and maddened him, and yet he found himself captivated by her. Enchanted by each hue in her round blue eyes and every freckle upon her face. He caught himself counting the colours that weaved together to become her braids: russet reds and coppers, glints of gold and bronze. He hung from her every word when she spoke, listening intently while the other’s scoffed, Paul mumbling that she was a “know-it-all.” He’d felt a spark of jealousy when Charlie Sloane had posted on the take notice board about her. He had heard a swell of violin strings fill his mind when her hand had slipped into his and she looked at him, at _him_ , like he was someone she may have wanted. And despite his better judgement, his mind telling him to be sensible because Anne Shirley Cuthbert didn’t love him - she barely tolerated him, really - he felt her seep into every cell of his being until he was filled with her. He would think of her when he woke, and wondered what her thoughts were on passages within their school readers as he studied in the afternoon. He would approach her outside the school house to ask if he could accompany her home until Diana appeared at her side and he drew away, wandering down the opposite path and hoping no-one had noticed how his feet had faltered, or the crest-fallen expression he wore on his face. He was compelled to be close to her, no matter how hard he fought it.

He kicked distractedly at the grass, his eyes searching through the crowds for a glimpse of her once more, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t coming back. He had to go back to Winnie.

He turned slowly, wandering unseeingly through the mass of people gathered on the grass, the performers and displays that had captivated him and had him chuckling not an hour before now blurred, the music discordant and mocking like the cackling laughter of a red-nosed clown as he wandered past the stalls. He could see red and white candy stripes appearing above the stalls, Gilbert’s steps becoming slower as he neared the tent and the people he had left there. He could picture the smug smile Bash would wear when Gilbert came to stand with them once more, the teasing note in his voice unnoticed to all but Gilbert as he asked after Anne. He could imagine Marilla fussing and the questioning look in Winnie’s eyes when he made himself to meet them. 

He stilled, dragging his cap from his head, wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand. He sighed. Why was it that even when he forced himself to, he wasn’t able to escape Anne? He was here with Winnie. He was lucky to be here with Winnie. Many young men would grasp at the chance, he was sure, and yet when he closed his eyes, his mind filled with red and blue and creamy, freckled skin. He felt his heart thrum with her, each beat as though it was repeating her name.

_Anne. Anne. Anne._

He groaned. He needed to get control of this. He needed to move on from Anne.

“Thank you, Madam,” called an excited voice, and Gilbert snapped from his thoughts, his eyes finding two girls giggling as they hurried arm-in-arm from a tent beside him. It was plain, an unassuming cream canvas with a black pitched roof, but there was an allure to it, something mysterious and exciting, an intoxicating pull that dragged him forwards. He eyed the markings by the entrance.

_Madam Lyudmila. Sees All, Tells All._

Gilbert chuckled, casting his eyes upwards. He must have lost his mind. But desperate people do desperate things. He reached out, hand fisting around the gauzy purple material that concealed the entrance. He cast a hurried glance over his shoulder, his stomach bubbling with something like uncertainty. Or excitement. Or, perhaps, fear that he would be told something he wasn’t prepared to hear. He took a breath. He silenced his mind. He stepped inside.

It was cool, where the sun couldn’t reach, the interior of the tent dark, plum coloured curtains rippling with an unseen wind that sent a shiver down his spine. The scent of smoke was heavy in the air, curling around him like a fist and drawing him to the centre of the room where a square table was situated, draped in a rich red cloth. Gilbert swallowed as he eyed the orb in the centre of it, fisting his cap in his hand as his eyes raised from the glass ball to the woman who sat behind the table, her chin rested in one hand as she eyed him.

“Come on in, boy,” she said to him, her accent drawling and thick. “There is nothing in here for you to be fearful of.”

A sharp burst of laughter escaped Gilbert.

“I’m not afraid,” he said, firmly, but he knew she could tell it was a lie. Her eyes dropped to the hat he now twisted in both hands. Her wide mouth curved with a smile.

“Of course.”

She leant back in her seat, drawing the dark lace shawl she wore tighter around her shoulders. The bangles on her wrists jingled tinnily as she gestured for Gilbert to sit opposite her. He hesitated, eyeing the chair and then her, wondering just what had dragged him in here, where the air was still and much too quiet. He swallowed. The woman leant forward onto her elbows.

“I can see you are nervous, but there is no need to be. You have a curiosity and I have all the answers,” she crooned, her voice like a sing-song, an incantation to lure him like a sailor from a ship, drowning in deep water as a siren reared her head above the surface. “The spirits are with us and they are here to guide your path.”

“Madam,” Gilbert stammered. “Forgive me. I don’t think I’m supposed to be…”

“You are curious about the future,” she interrupted, a deck of cards appearing before her as if conjured from the air. Gilbert frowned as he watched her shuffle them between gnarled fingers. “Let me give you some answers. Tell me, what is it you desire the most?”

_Anne._

Gilbert’s eyes clenched shut as he swallowed, shaking Anne’s name from his head.

“I wish to be a doctor,” he said. He nodded curtly, needing to reassure himself. “I wish to go to Paris. The Sorbonne.”

“A _doctor?”_ Madam Lyudmila asked. She quirked an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest. Gilbert felt himself shrink beneath her scrutinising gaze, her furrowed brow softening as a triumphant grin spread across her face. “Ah. But that is not all you wish.”

Gilbert cast a glance to the side. “How did you – ”

“You wish to be a doctor of the body, Mister…?”

“Gilbert.”

She grinned. “Mister Gilbert. But I am a doctor of the soul. I make diagnoses too, and I can see your mind is troubled. Take a seat and allow Madam Lyudmila to ease your worries.”

He shouldn’t have been here, Anne swirling around his mind as Winifred waited for him beneath the pitched roof of a tent, but the woman lured him in. He needed answers and she could give them to him. He stepped forward, dragging the chair from beneath the table. He sank into the seat.

Madam Lyudmila began shuffling the cards between her hands once more, her fingers adorned in brass coloured rings as they riffled together, elaborate images painted in gold on the face of each one.

“Tell me, Mister Gilbert,” she said, a golden tooth glinting as she smiled at him. “What is it you want to hear? Hold the question in your heart and allow the cards to answer.”

_Is Anne the one that I should marry?_

The question appeared so unexpectedly it startled him, Gilbert’s breath catching in his throat as the words formed. He felt his heartbeat quicken, the sound of it drumming in his ears. He glanced around hurriedly, worried Madam Lyudmila would hear it in the hush of the tent, the only sound the gentle clink of her metal bracelets and the swish of one card over another.

She fanned the cards before him, laying them face down flat on the table.

“Now,” she said, eyeing him from heavily kohled eyes. “Do you have your question?”

Gilbert nodded his head. “I do.”

“Allow your heart to guide you. Pick three cards that call to you.”

He could feel her eyes on him, Gilbert cursing himself for the obvious tremble in his hand as he reached across the table, fingertips grazing the painted backs of the cards. He waited for something within him to tell him to stop, for something to lead him to a card like he was drawn to Anne, but the feeling didn’t come. He laughed breathily. _It was all nonsense_ , he told himself. It was nothing but a bunch of hocus pocus. He tapped the back of one card with a long finger. Madam Lyudmila smiled as she pulled it from the strip, holding it in her hand. Gilbert felt his confidence grow. He tapped another, which the fortune teller drew from the others. He tapped a final card.

“You’re certain in your choices?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Very good.” She shuffled her cards together once more, taking the three Gilbert had selected and laying them before him on the table, the images now displayed. He studied them with a frown, looking for the meaning in them. A pair painted together. A figure on a cliff. A starry sky. Nonsense. Meaningless nonsense.

“ _Ah.”_

Gilbert’s eyes snapped to the clairvoyant as a sly smile curved Madam Lyudmila’s face. She looked from the cards to the boy across the table.

“What is it?” He felt something like panic crest within him at the look on her face. What could she see in these images that meant so little to his unknowing eyes. “What does it mean?”

“ _Y_ _ou,”_ she jabbed a bony finger towards him, “are here for love.”

Gilbert shivered; his mouth suddenly dry as he looked from the cards to the woman. “How did you know?” he asked.

“The cards see all parts of the soul. They see what you wish to hide away. You asked them the question, now here is your answer.”

Curiosity overcame him, washing away all sense that told him not to listen. She knew, this stranger. She knew about Anne. He had to hear what she could tell him.

“And what do they say?” he asked, hurriedly.

She fingered at the cards, Gilbert wishing he could shake her and urge her to speak. He felt as though she was playing with him, dangling him on a thread and pawing at him like a cat with a string.

“You are searching for your soulmate,” she said eventually, raising her eyes to Gilbert, one eyebrow quirked as she saw him nod. She smiled smugly. “I see that here. _The Lovers,_ a powerful card. You are looking for the person you are to spend your life with.”

“Who is that?” he asked. “Can you see who she is?”

The woman laughed, leaning back in the old wicker chair she was settled in, folding her arms across her ample chest.

“You remind me of someone,” she said. “Another I spoke to today. Just as curious. Just as _eager._ ”

“Just as lost.” He heard a hollowness in his own voice as he spoke, his shoulders slumping forward as his face fell into his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What is troubling you?” she asked. “Tell the cards and let them guide you.”

“I think - I _fear_ \- I have feelings for someone who doesn’t feel the same.”

“An unrequited love,” Madam Lyudmila crooned. “How tragic.”

“Yes.” His eyes dropped to the hat in his hands, Gilbert wringing the tweed material between them. “I came here today with a girl but she isn’t the one I have feelings for.”

Madam Lyudmila eyed him, seeing the worried frown between his brow, a look that aged his young face, marking him as a man when he was only on the cusp of shedding his boyhood.

 _Why are all these young people in such a rush to grow up,_ she wondered, thinking back on the girl who had occupied his seat not an hour beforehand, just as troubled. She leant forward, folding her hands beneath her chin as she watched him run a hand roughly through his hair. Tall, dark, very handsome… Her eyebrows quirked, a slow smile spreading on her face.

“Tell me, Mister Gilbert,” she began. “Would you consider yourself a good dancer?”

His eyes lifted to her, a puzzled expression on his face. “Uhm, I have only danced once,” he admitted, and then in a low voice, speaking to the hands twisted in his lap, he finished, “with Anne.”

“Anne?” she asked. 

His eyes became golden at the sound of her name, something bright and hopeful in the irises. “Yes.”

“With an ‘e’?” she asked and she saw him sit straighter, invested once more. She grinned. She had him.

“How…?”

“So cynical for one so young,” she crooned. “The spirits laugh at your naivety.”

Her hands flourished over the three cards he had selected.

“This,” she stabbed a finger at the card depicting two figures, “symbolises your twin flame. She is in this card, Anne. Red hair and fiery temper. She is very beautiful today, is she not? Blue is a colour that suits her.”

Gilbert blushed.

“You can see that?” he asked, his heart swelling in his chest. He felt as though he was rising, lifting out of his seat and onto his feet. His fingers gripped to the sides of the chair, tethering him to the earth.

“She is here, in your future,” she purred, before stabbing at another card. “And this, _The Hermit._ It sees you are confused. Do not be, boy. Find your inner truth. Listen with your heart and you will understand.”

Madam Lyudmila studied him, giddy with how entranced he had become, his eyes following each movement of her hand, memorising each curved golden line of the painted images before him.

“And lastly,” she said, her smile becoming wider as she laid her trump card. _This is too easy,_ she thought. People would believe anything they wished to hear. “ _The Star.”_

“What does that mean?” he asked, his voice breathy, almost a whisper.

“Hope,” she replied. “She is waiting for you, Mister Gilbert. That girl is your fish.”

“She’s waiting for _me?”_ he stuttered. “You’re sure?”

The woman chuckled. “The cards know all.”

Gilbert bit his lip. “But what if they're wrong.”

Madam Lyudmila held out her hand to him. “Let me see your hand.”

Gilbert uncurled his fist, painful half moon shapes imprinted onto the heel of his hand from where his fingernails had dug in. He raised his hand tentatively, reaching it across the table for Madam Lyudmila to take. She grabbed it roughly in her own, jerking his palm towards her and studying it with her beady eyes.

“She is here too,” she said, a long fingernail grazing over the lines of his skin. “Etched into your very being.”

“Where?” Gilbert asked, leaning forward and studying the lines that had been sketched on his palm for as long as he could remember. How could Anne have been there the whole time and he hadn’t noticed?

A sharp fingernail trailed across his skin, tracing the lines that marked him like rivers on a map. He held his breath as the woman began to speak.

“Your heart line,” she said, “it is long. You will live a full and happy life together.”

Gilbert swallowed. A long and happy life with _Anne._ His Anne. He closed his eyes, imagining waking in the morning to see a river of red hair spill across his pillow, feel the softness of her flesh beneath his fingertips. He imagined watching her dress, buttoning her blouse and lacing her boots. He could see them in a kitchen together, Anne’s voice low as she sang, stirring a pot as he sliced the vegetables, dropping a kiss to her lips as he carried them to the stove and added them to the simmering mixture she kept a watchful eye over. He imagined them by the fire late at night, Anne’s head in his lap as they read by the warm glow of firelight. He imagined her laughter, her quick steps as Gilbert chased her up the stairs, catching her at the waist and kissing her deeply as her hand found the door handle and they stumbled into their bedroom.

“Many branches from this line,” Madam Lyudmila observed. Gilbert raised his eyes to her, his brow rounded as he waited for her to elaborate. She laughed gently, seeing the expectant look to his face. “Many children,” she clarified.

“Children?” 

Dark curls. No, red. All of them with bright red hair and eyes that shone like the summer sky, freckles flecking the bridges of their noses. He felt his heart constrict. Why must the future be so far away?

“You hold your future in your palm.” Madam Lyudmila let his hand go, Gilbert so winded by her prediction that he couldn’t stop it before it fell to the table with a loud thud. “You are destined for a great love.”

She eyed him keenly, her fingers tapping against her chin. “But you are not brave enough yet. There is just one thing holding you back from her.”

“And what is that?”

She leant forward, jabbing her finger into the centre of his forehead. “Your head. You live too much in your head when your heart,” she stabbed at the lapel of his jacket, “your heart should never be ignored.”

Gilbert’s hand found his heart, a small smile flitting across his face as he felt it beat beneath his palm, the rhythm, each beat, whispering her name. It was Anne _. Anne. Anne._

“What do I do?” he asked, his eyes lifting from the cards to the woman. “How do I let her know how I feel?”

She smothered a sigh, drumming her fingernails against the table. These children, with all their drama and foolishness, were making this day particularly trying.

“The cards can only direct you. They cannot tell you how to act upon their advice.”

“I should tell her,” he said, going to stand, his thighs hitting against the table before he sunk back into the seat. “But Winifred… What do I do about Winifred?”

A jolt of irritation flashed through the clairvoyant.

“Do you love her?” she asked him, barely disguising her annoyance.

“What?”

“This Anne?” she pressed. “Are you in love with her?”

“I – _Yes_ ,” he whispered. “Yes, I think I am.”

“Then let your heart be your guide. She is your destiny but it is up to you when you claim it.”

Gilbert nodded thoughtfully, thinking of the girl who had accompanied him today. _Marry for love,_ Mary had said. How foolish Gilbert had been, keeping up with the charade of courting someone when he _knew_ his heart belonged to Anne. It always had been, and always would be, Anne's.

His eyes found the fortune teller once more, her hand held out between them, a waiting grin on her face. He nodded, pushing his hand into his pocket and pulling twenty cents from within it, dropping the two coins into her palm.

“Thank you,” he said, a grateful smile on his face. “Thank you so much.”

Madam Lyudmila grinned. “Good luck, Mister Gilbert, with Anne.”

 _Anne._ Gilbert laughed. He could barely believe they would be each other’s, their fates twisted together like the gnarled roots of a tree, going deeper and deeper into the earth. His hand found his heart once more, Anne thrumming through him with each thudding beat until he was vibrating with her. He fixed his hat to his head, his mind filled with her as he went to take his leave, drawing the curtain aside. The jaunty sounds of the fair filled the tent.

Anne was his past, the face that he had followed with curiosity, ever since he found her in the forest, enshrouded with mist. She was his present, the one he wished to be close to. The one whose hand fit perfectly within his own. And she was to be his future when she was ready. That wouldn’t be today. There was something he must do first. But it would be soon, fate stretching out before them like a road with no end. 

He stepped back into the bright summer’s day, brimming with optimism for what the future held for him. Madam Lyudmila watched him leave, cackling as she pocketed his money.

 _Lovesick fools,_ she thought, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag. _They will believe anything you tell them._

She wondered what would become of him and Anne as the gauzy purple curtain fell closed against his back.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's that, really. I wrote this in three hours so I'm fully aware it isn't a masterpiece but it's a little idea I thought I would share. I hope you liked it.
> 
> I know Gilbert is very sensible and he may sound a little out of character, but let's let him be gullible for a moment because he's a kid and he's allowed to be naive. He doesn't think he'll ever have a chance with Anne and here is a future laid out before him, so I let him get swept into it. 
> 
> I think the canon season 3 timeline can still play out after this, with Anne and Gilbert's conversation at the bonfire also being Gilbert's realisation that Madam Lyudmila's prediction may have been wrong and he shouldn't have believed her as he did. I also just really enjoyed the thought of Madam Lyudmila thinking she had conned Gilbert when she had predicted his future exactly. 
> 
> I used to think I was super cynical over Tarot or angel readings but now I find something a little comforting in the messages they can bring, even if they aren't always true.
> 
> Leave a little comment or kudos if you'd like, or come chat on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/chaos_in_calm) or [Tumblr](https://beckybubbles.tumblr.com/) if you wish!
> 
> All the best and lots of love,  
> Becky x


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